


The Ache for Home

by PostcardsfromTheoryland



Series: December Fic Prompts [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adoption, Christmas Fluff, Nostalgia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:08:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27874326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PostcardsfromTheoryland/pseuds/PostcardsfromTheoryland
Summary: "The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned."
Relationships: Adam & Keith & Shiro (Voltron)
Series: December Fic Prompts [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2037385
Comments: 4
Kudos: 34





	The Ache for Home

The very first Christmas Keith had spent with Shiro and Adam had been…odd. Not bad, just unexpected. The Christmas before that, he’d been with a foster family that mostly pretended he wasn’t there, sitting alone in his room while he heard the family chatting and laughing over dinner downstairs without him. Which was still honestly better than the year before that, when he’d been forced to sit with the family and watch his foster siblings open their gifts and realize there was nothing under the tree for him. The two Christmases before that had been spent in the group home, which was a nightmare in and of itself, and completely miserable during any sort of holiday.

So Christmas at the Holts’ that first year he was with Shiro and Adam had been loud, and a little awkward, but by far a better experience. He and Katie had bonded over Star Wars, and Dr. Holt had made a sweet potato dish special for Keith after Shiro had nagged him for about a week to learn some of Keith’s favorite holiday foods. It had been late by the time they left the Holts’ place, but they’d still done their own gifts once they got back. Keith doesn’t really remember what he got for Shiro and Adam that first year, though he does remember separate shopping trips with both of them to pick out gifts. They’d given him a tablet, which seemed like too much on top of the pile of things they’d given him when he first came to live with them. They were all still getting used to each other at that point, but it was still nice.

The next two Christmases had proceeded in much the same way. Shiro and Adam had always been the best foster family he’d lived with, that wasn’t even a contest. But it had still, despite all of their reassurances, felt temporary – like things could change at any moment, like he could still mess up badly enough that they shipped him back to the Bureau.

Things are different now. There’s a piece of paper in Keith’s room attesting to that, that proves he’s family – not by blood, but in all the ways that matter. That proves that he belongs.

It’s going to be Keith’s first Christmas with a real family since he was six years old, and it’s silly, and childish, but he wakes up on the morning of the 25th and realizes he doesn’t really want to share. He wants to stay home, with Shiro and Adam and Kosmo, and just…be.

It’s stupid, he shakes his head and he makes his way into the kitchen. The Holts are practically family by this point anyway, and it’s not as if Keith has some kind of monopoly on Shiro and Adam’s time.

Shiro is still mostly asleep at the table, only on his second cup of coffee, but turns an appraising eye on him.

“Something on your mind?”

“No, it’s nothing,” Keith says as he grabs the orange juice. “Just thinking, is all.”

Adam keeps staring at him through all of breakfast, though, but it’s not until Shiro is at least somewhat coherent that he asks again.

“Seriously. What is it?”

“No, it’s silly, it’s…don’t worry about it. Everything is fine.” But Adam just keeps on staring, because he knows eventually Keith will cave. “Ok, fine, I. I want to stay home today. With you, I mean, I want _us_ to stay home today.” It sounds foolish even as he says it, and also kind of ungrateful since the Holts have been hosting Shiro and Adam for Christmas long before Keith came into the picture.

Adam and Shiro share a look and a little shrug. “Okay,” Shiro says.

“You don’t mind?” Keith asks. “Or will the Holts be offended, or…”

“I’m sure they’ll understand,” Adam smiles. “We’ll go over sometime tomorrow, instead.”

And that, it seems, is that. They spend the morning and most of the early afternoon lounging, watching old Christmas specials on TV, and somehow not murdering each other during a game of Monopoly. Keith ends up taking a nap with Kosmo on the couch afterward (not that he and the giant husky can really fit on the couch at the same time, but they make do), and wakes up to the smell of ham and potatoes and green beans. He’s pretty sure they didn’t have any of those ingredients in the house this morning.

“Sam, Colleen, Matt, and Katie say hi,” Shiro confirms for him as he continues taking food out of the Tupperware. “For some reason they also think we’re incapable of cooking, so Sam was insistent that I pick up the leftovers. Colleen made sure to pack some of your ridiculous sweet potato thing.”

“It’s not ridiculous,” Keith grumbles.

“There are marshmallows,” Adam says from where he’s grabbing plates and glasses. “ _Marshmallows_.”

The rest of the evening is nice, food-related teasing and all. They don’t bother turning the lights on once it gets dark, letting the tree and candles give the room a soft glow. They trade gifts like normal and Keith ends up sitting on the floor by the tree, back resting against Kosmo, feeling sort of sleepy despite not doing anything today.

“Keith,” Adam starts, and it’s one of the rare times he sounds hesitant. “I’ve been meaning to ask. Is there anything – what did you and your dad do, for Christmas?”

It’s a question that Keith has been expecting at some point today, but also dreading. Because the truth is… “I don’t remember. Not really. There was the normal stuff, you know, the tree and the presents and everything, but.” But the rest of sort of a blur. He’d been young when his dad died, and the negative memories and emotions from Christmases that followed had sort of blocked out the good ones. He can’t really remember anything specific that made their Christmases special; it was just special because it was the two of them. There’s just one thing he can think of. “We stargazed, though. We did it most nights, but he let me stay up later than normal on Christmas.” Keith has fuzzy memories of staying awake much longer than his little 6-year-old body could handle, sipping hot chocolate and snuggled under a blanket while his dad named off the constellations for him.

“Do you want…?” Shiro asks.

“Yeah,” Keith says.

Which is how he finds himself sandwiched between Shiro and Adam on the roof with a husky lying on his feet and a mug of the good hot chocolate Adam saves for special occasions. It’s not his dad’s rough, slow drawl explaining the stars and how to use them to navigate if he ever gets lost out in the desert; this time it’s Shiro and Adam, trading stories that start with trips out to the Mars research station and devolve into the time Shiro managed to fail an astronomy exam by reading a star chart upside down.

It’s not a replacement – it will never be a replacement – but it’s the first time in nine years that Keith is truly home for Christmas.


End file.
